Mazowsze

17th February 2012

Warsaw’s Royal Baths are to receive a PLN 34 mln facelift thanks to EU money, enabling elevations on the Island Palace to be repaired. Additionally, work will be done on the roofs, to the amphitheatre and the asphalt pathways will be replaced with classier gravel ones.

Culture Minister, Bogdan Zdrojewski, and the Bath’s director, Tadeusz Zilniewicz, signed an agreement this Thursday to set the plan in motion. The first work will begin in the Spring. The EU is providing PLN 24 mln out of the total - the first time the Baths have received any assistance from the body. Not all the work will be visible, though.

Inside, the entire electrical installation will be changed as well as the central heating system. The modernisation of one of Warsaw’s favourite parks is scheduled to be complete in 2015.

Twelve years for five zloty?

Two youths are facing a maximum of twelve years in prison for a botched mugging, in which they demanded a mere PLN 5 from their young victim. The two would-be robbers, 17-year-old Mariusz O. and 20-year-old Damian N. decided to try their hand at a spot of demanding money with menaces.

They approached their young victim in a shopping mall, asking for the small sum. When he refused to hand it over, one of the two tried to punch him and then the pair started dragging him into the nearby public toilets.
They hadn’t counted, though, on the rapid response of a shop security guard, who restrained the two bungling bandits until police arrived at the scene. They have been charged with assault and robbery, which carries a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison.

Warsaw winterland

After the deepfreeze came the snow - with Warsaw experiencing severe traffic difficulties. Traffic jams grew and vehicles were moving at a snail’s pace. On the first day of the snows as many as 70 accidents were recorded, with one fatality.

In a costly accident, bus number 701 took out a whole row of seven vehicles following a crash with a woman driving a Mercedes. “Initial findings suggest the Mercedes driver failed to give way,” explained Adam Stawicki of the Warsaw Bus Company. “The driver was forced to turn sharply, as a result of which he started to slide and hit the parked cars,” the spokesman continued. No one was injured in the incident.

I donut believe it!

Thousands of people stood in an enormous queue to get their ‘Fat Thursday’ donuts from one of the best cake shops in the city, on ul. Gorczewska, despite the weather blowing up a blizzard and a limit of twenty donuts per customer. The shop’s reputation is no overnight success, with a history stretching back to 1925 - even Pilsudksi is reputed to have ordered donuts from there.